Valentin De Las Sierras (EOTWS)
End Of The Week Shorts #23 extract: Valentin De Las Sierras (1968)
Valentin de las Sierras is seemingly an impressionistic short film, one that portrays its world through extreme close-ups that imply minute and intricate sensory details. This is layered over an old Mexican corrido (a narrative song), played and sung by a blind man.
The image, in many ways, becomes subservient to the sound design in this narrative, as shots only add visual context (and little of it) to the complex, multi-layered soundscape. In turn, this is a story told primarily through sound with, somewhat ironically, the aid of moving pictures - cinema - that imply what it may be like to be a blind man.
Considered by some to be Bruce Baillie's masterpiece, Valentin de las Sierras is certainly a film worth watching--and listening to.
